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Ferro Farewell Focuses on Need to Spread Safety Burden

Corrected -- Anne Ferro’s departing message is that the cost of truck and bus safety needs to be distributed more evenly through the supply chain.

Too much of the burden falls on drivers who are not paid for all the time they work, said Ferro in an exit interview Thursday with a number of reporters.

Ferro will step down August 25 after five years as chief of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. She will become president and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators when she leaves FMCSA.

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She said that her experience late last year in a ride-along with owner-operator Leo Wilkins showed her how much safety responsibility falls on drivers and law enforcement while compliant carriers must bid against low-end competitors in a market dedicated to squeezing out costs.

“We need to move that safety calculus back into the supply chain and move the costs earlier among those influencing it,” she said.

It was a theme she returned to repeatedly.

“It is essential to recognize that professional drivers should be compensated for all time on duty. That’s integral to achieving the overall safety mission.”

Asked how she would measure the agency’s success when looking back five years from now, she started with the obvious metric – fewer fatal crashes – and then added, “vastly improved compensation for professional drivers, a higher bar for safety for those in the supply chain and incorporating safety into logistics management algorithms.”

The tension between the commercial pressure to deliver freight at the lowest possible cost and the imperative to do so safely is at the heart of the perpetual struggle over hours of service, Ferro said.

The agency is obliged by law to set constraints on carriers’ ability to meet their customers’ demands.

“In an economic system that continues to try to drive the last penny out of the supply chain, transportation and trucking in particular gets squeezed the hardest because it has the least leverage,” she said.

The trucking industry is fragmented and highly competitive, with a large group of small business operators – “A David facing the Goliath of supply chain shippers.”

“That tension will always bump up against an hours of service rule.”

She added that not everyone in the industry opposes the provisions of the rule that have sparked controversy in Congress.

The agency opposes this approach, preferring to keep the provision in place while the study proceeds.

“There are large numbers of drivers who would vastly prefer to see an hours of service structure that recognized their personal demands as professionals to get proper rest, and to work within a more manageable system,” Ferro said.

As the legislative fight over the restart continues, the agency is working on several studies of the issue, she said.

It has a contract with the National Academy of Sciences for a study that’s now under way, and it recently began the process of polling stakeholders for the questions they want answered in a second study. Another effort is targeting the impact of driver fatigue on small businesses.

The hours rule and others implemented during Ferro’s tenure have prompted some in the industry to blame Ferro for excessive regulation, even though others in the industry would like to see more regulation.

Ferro said she does not take the criticism personally.

“It’s not about me. It’s about the position and it’s about the agency’s role,” she said.

The FMCSA administrator “is not here to make friends,” she said. “The administrator is here to fulfill the letter of the law.”

The opportunity from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators came before “OOIDA called for my head,” she said.

One pending rule at the agency, a proposal to ban coercion of drivers by employers, shippers, receivers or brokers, is the first clear expansion of the FMCSA’s mandate deeper into the supply chain, Ferro said.

But the rule will not be a silver bullet, she added.

She encouraged carriers to use today’s market conditions, in which demand exceeds supply, to get better treatment for drivers.

“Shippers that are abusive should frankly be shut out,” she said. “I applaud any owner-operator or carrier who says to a shipper, ‘if you’re not going to pay detention time and tighten up on respect, we’re not taking your contract.'”

Ferro also said that the Department of Transportation and White House still are vetting the long-awaiting study of crash accountability in the CSA safety enforcement system. The final report is a few months away, she said.

Corrected 8/15/2014 9:45 a.m. EDT: The actual offer at AAMVA did not come before OOIDA's letter, although the opportunity did. The official offer came afterward.

Comments

1.Spoon[ August 15, 2014 @ 03:53AM ]

She was breaking the law and pushing useless regulations that have only hurt this industry. We need more flexibility. This isn't a 9 to 5 industry. I should be able to stop take a nap and stop my clock instead the current rules force me to be in the seat. Classic government administrator acts like she wants to help then turns around and does what she wants. Her agenda is all that mattered to her. Good bye

2.Pops[ August 15, 2014 @ 04:49AM ]

Brokers have long been the problem with this industry. Target the real problems, shippers who don't want to pay more than they need to and brokers who take a cut into the drivers profits. OTR trucks have become the warehouses of industry.

3.Nick justice[ August 15, 2014 @ 06:04AM ]

Too late to kiss up now ann, everyone hates you.

4.Jeff[ August 15, 2014 @ 07:12AM ]

We are all entitled to our opinions, the comments just show what a non-glamorous position that is, I certainly would not want the job. I wish her all the best of luck and would agree that her time is up at the FMCSA. Lets just hope that the new administrator will bring new light in the regulatory arena.

5.Joe[ August 15, 2014 @ 04:04PM ]

"Everyone hates you?" I don't "hate" Ms. Ferro. Everyone thinking a "better" administrator lurks in the wings apparently knows very little about a likely replacement: FMCSA's Bill Bronrott. His background makes Ms.Ferro look like a Rhodes Scholar on the trucking industry. Good luck "haters" with him as administrator.

6.Jeff[ August 17, 2014 @ 05:51AM ]

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" - Roger Daltry

7.Roger[ August 17, 2014 @ 09:45AM ]

"vastly improved compensation for professional drivers" ? ? ? What fantasy land is she living in? If there have been any increases in mileage pay they absolutely haven't even kept up with the inflated prices of goods and services that we use every day.

8.Lee Lenard[ August 17, 2014 @ 09:54AM ]

Like Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Rush Lambaugh, "Queen Anne" believes her own crap is special and everyone really needs it and is waiting. Tremendous unneeded damage done to the trucking industry and "working class" "American" truck drivers.....If her replacement continues her goals---would just be same as if she were there. We can hope someone gets the job THAT knows a little something about trucking and what it REALLY is like out on the road and CAN understand how implementation of rules get reacted to in the work place.....Like the EOBC, just makes drivers drive more when tired, take chances they should not, speed when they should not have to, run red lights just to beat that computer clock by a few minutes and make it to where they have to be before time expires.....Walmart driver Roper a prime example!

9.Justin[ August 20, 2014 @ 03:11AM ]

Good bye! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!! We drivers will still be screwed.

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